How do Kraft, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Adobe Boost Productivity?
Ensuring wellness in and across organizations. Talent Management magazine outlines
Tips to Ensure Wellness Boosts Productivity, which offers us key considerations for a sound framework and wellness program structure, as well as
5 Key Steps to Workplace Wellness. These are both interesting articles and offer ideas, but they are summaries of concepts we’ve been hearing about for some time. Now that wellness programs have been running long enough to show increased productivity, healthcare cost savings for employers and employees, and bottom line ROI; what’s next for creating an even more holistic approach to wellness?
An online community comment to the “Tops to Ensure Wellness” article offers the concept of management also paying attention to employees’ emotional and psychological well being while at work. Since physical well being is only 1 facet of a person’s whole being, is this facet of manageable and measurable within health and wellness programs? Since incentives and rewards have become fundamental parts of wellness programs, can they also be used to motivate emotional wellness on a measurable basis? Let us know your thoughts by commenting here.
Developing Healthy Lifestyles in your Office
Using Carrots to Raise Retention Rates
Using carrot rewards, which reward employees for desired behavior, have been proven effective in rewarding employees in a number of ways. Carrots can be used in health and wellness programs to reward employees for reaching goals, they can be used as spot rewards, to reward employees on the spot for desired behavior, but carrots are most traditionally used as milestone rewards. Rewarding employees for long-term commitment to their organization goes a long way. Whether it is a gift card on their one year anniversary, extra vacation time after 5 years, or a watch after 10 years, recognizing employees efforts, commitment and sacrifice over time is crucial. It both recognizes the employee's contribution, and shows the employee that their organization will continue to support and recognize them. When employees feel noticed and supported their productivity goes up, their commitment extends, and they become more content in their jobs and their workplace. Dangling carrots may help boost retention rates and keep employees content for longer.
For more information on using carrot rewards to improve employee retention check out this article from Daily News and Analysis.
Getting to the HEART of Business
This is an incentive and gift card blog, but at the heart of our industry is full of interesting stories about businesses, how they start, and what makes them keep on ticking. Check out Anthony Tjan’s post on
Harvard Business Review:
Great Businesses Don’t Start with a Plan to learn how GiftCard Partners was started and what makes it tick. Ed Shulkin’s post (Eshukin on the blog) is a great reminder of why we are all in business. Enjoy!
4 Components of an Effective Employee Rewards Program
There are 4 major criteria on which employee rewards should be evaluated. Addressing compensation, benefits, recognition and appreciation through employee rewards will help address a diverse range of HR topics. Using employee rewards to address these areas will help cut down on HR issues and keep employee productivity up. The investment in the rewards program will save your organization in the long term and help support strategic organizational goals. A comprehensive reward program should recognize both employee activity performance, and specific behaviors. Activity performance is goal oriented. Once an employee reaches a performance goal, they should receive some type of reward from the company, whether it is a gift card to their favorite restaurant, or an extra afternoon off. Behavior-based rewards are slightly more difficult to execute. When an employee exhibits a certain type of behavior desired by the organization, they should also be rewarded. This can often take the form of a "spot reward." These are smaller rewards given on the spot of desired behavior. This could be a small denomination gift card given to employees whenever appropriate. Rewards should be given for both types of behavior, in all four categories to maintain consistency and a culture of appreciate within the organization. This will improve retention rates, productivity, and morale.
For more information on creating a strategic rewards system visit this Entrepreneur.com article.
